14.1. Introduction

Zend_View is a class for working with the "view" portion of
the model-view-controller pattern. That is, it exists to
help keep the view script separate from the model and
controller scripts. It provides a system of helpers, output
filters, and variable escaping.

Zend_View is template system agnostic; you may use PHP as
your template language, or create instances of other
template systems and manipulate them within your view
script.

Essentially, using Zend_View happens in two major steps:
1. Your controller script creates an instance of
Zend_View and assigns variables to that instance.
2. The controller tells the Zend_View to render a particular
view, thereby handing control over the view script, which
generates the view output.

14.1.1. Controller Script

As a simple example, let us say your controller has a list
of book data that it wants to have rendered by a view. The
controller script might look something like this:

14.1.2. View Script

Now we need the associated view script, "booklist.php".
This is a PHP script like any other, with one exception: it
executes inside the scope of the Zend_View instance, which
means that references to $this point to the Zend_View
instance properties and methods. (Variables assigned to the
instance by the controller are public properties of the
Zend_View instance.) Thus, a very basic view script could
look like this: